Parsons, Samuel Holden 1737-
Military officer; born in Lyme, Conn., May 14, 1737; graduated at Harvard College in 1756; admitted to the bar in 1759; was a representative in the Connecticut Assembly for eighteen sessions.
He was an active patriot at the beginning of the Revolution.
He was made colonel of a Connecticut regiment in 1775, and engaged in the siege of Boston.
In August, 1776, he was made a brigadier-general, and as such engaged in the battle on Long Island.
In 1779 Parsons succeeded General Putnam in command of the Connecticut line, and in 1780 was commissioned a majorgeneral.
At the close of the war he resumed the practice of law, and was appointed by Washington first judge of the Northwestern Territory.
He was also employed to treat with the Indians for the extinguishment of their titles to the Connecticut Western Reserve, in northern Ohio.
He went to the new territory in 1787; settled there; and was drowned in the Big Beaver River, Ohio, Nov. 17, 1789.
f a French fort in Acadia, sent a French manof-war to Penobscot and took possession of the Plymouth trading-house there, with all its goods.
A vessel was sent from Plymouth to recover the property.
The French fortified the place, and were so strongly intrenched that the expedition was abandoned.
The Plymouth people never afterwards recovered their interest at Penobscot.
The first permanent English occupation of the region of the Penobscot—to which the French laid claim—was acquired in 1759, when Governor Pownall, of Massachusetts, with the consent of the legislature, caused a fort to be built on the western bank of the Penobscot (afterwards Fort Knox), near the village of Prospect, which was named Fort Pownall.
An armed force from Massachusetts took possession of the region, built the fort, cut off the communications of the Eastern Indians (the only ones then hostile to the English), and so ended the contest for the Penobscot region by arms.
In 1799 a British force of sever
Pepperell, Sir, William 1696-1759
Military officer; born in Kittery, Me., June 27, 1696.
His father, a Welshman, came to New England as apprentice to a fisherman, where he married.
The son became a merchant, amassed a large fortune, and became an influential man. Fitted by temperament for military life, he was frequently engaged against the Indians, and attained much distinction.
About 1727 he was appointed one of his Majesty's council for the province of Massachusetts, and held the offiice of common pleas in 1730, he be-
Sir William Pepperell's House at Kittery, me. came eminent as a jurist.
In 1745 he commanded the successful expedition against Louisburg, and was knighted.
On visiting England in 1749, he was commissioned colonel in the British army;
Sir William Pepperell. became major-general in 1755; and lieutenant-general in 1759.
From 1756 to 1758 Sir William was acting governor of Massachusetts before the arrival of Pownall.
He died in Kittery, Me., July 6, 1759.
Pownall, Fort, erection of
Governor Pownall, of Massachusetts, took possession of the country around the Penobscot River in 1759, and secured it by the erection of a fort there.
It was done by 400 men granted by Massachusetts for the purpose, at a cost of about $15,000, and named Fort Pownall.
Preble, Jedediah 1707-1784
Military officer; born in Wells.
Me., in 1707; father of Edward Treble; was a sailor in early life, and in 1746 was a captain in a provincial regiment.
He was a lieutenant-colonel under General Winslow at the dispersion of the Acadians in 1755.
He rose to the rank of brigadier-general in 1759, and was twelve years a Representative.
In 1774 the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts made him a brigadier-general.
He was a State Senator in 1780, and judge of the Supreme Court.
He died in Portland, Me., March 11, 1784.
Prideaux, John 1718-
Military officer; born in Devonshire, England, in 1718; a son of Sir John Prideaux; entered the army, and was appointed captain in 1745, colonel in 1758, and brigadier-general in 1759.
Intrusted with the duty of reducing Fort Niagara, he led a strong force against it, and during a siege he was instantly killed by the bursting of a cannon, July 19, 1759.
Proud, Robert 1728-1813
Historian; born in Yorkshire, England, May 10, 1728; went to Philadelphia in 1759, where he taught Greek and Latin in a Quaker academy until the breaking-out of the Revolution, when he gave a passive adherence to the British crown.
In 1797 his History of Pennsylvania was published.
It embraces the period between 1681 and 1742.
He died in Philadelphia, July 7, 1813.
c, strengthened the fortifications there.
So enthusi-
Old town and ramparts, Quebec. astic were the people in preparing for defence that women worked on the forts.
Another expedition for the capture of Quebec was fitted out in the spring of 1759, and placed under the command of Gen. James Wolfe, then only thirty-three years of age. He left Louisburg with 8,000 troops, in transports, under a convoy of twenty-two line-of-battle ships and as many frigates and smaller armed vessels, commandeir linen frocks.
The last word was mistaken for tole-iron plate—and the message created a panic.
Detained by the storm, Arnold crossed the river on the night of the 13th with 500 men in bark canoes, landed at Wolfe's Cove (where Wolfe landed in 1759), ascended to the Plains of Abraham, marched towards the two gates of the city opening on the plain, and ordered his men to give three cheers to bring out the regulars to attack him, when he hoped to rush in through the open gates, and by the assi
8th June, 1742.
Died 1st September, 1814.
Charlotte R., wife of James Robertson, was born in North Carolina, 2d January, 1751.
Died 11th June, 1843.
Their son Dr. Felix Robertson, who was born in the fort, and the first white child whose birth was in west Tennessee, died at Nashville in 1864.
Royal governor, born in Fifeshire, Scotland, about 1710; was deputy-quartermaster under General Abercrombie in 1758; was at the capture of Louisburg; and accompanied Amherst to Lake Champlain in 1759.
He took part in the expedition against Martinique in 1762, and was afterwards stationed in New York.
At Boston, in 1775, he was made major-general, Jan. 1, 1776, and at the evacuation of that city he shared in the plunder.
He was in the battle of Long Island; was military governor of New York until his return to England; and, coming back, was commissioned military governor of the city of New York in May, 1779, and remained such until April, 1783, when he again returned to England, where h
Rogers, Robert 1727-1800
Military officer; born in Dunbarton, N. H., in 1727.
Raising a corps of rangers, he was commissioned a major, and he and his men became renowned for their exploits during the French and Indian War. In 1759 he destroyed the Indian village of St. Francis, and in 1760 was sent by General Amherst to take possession of Detroit and other Western posts ceded to the English by the French.
Going to England, he there published his journal, which he presented to the King, who, in 1765, made him governor of Michilimackinac (Mackinaw); but he was shortly afterwards sent to Montreal, in irons, to be tried on a charge of a design to plunder the fort and join the French.
He was acquitted, went to England, was presented to the King, and was soon afterwards imprisoned for debt.
Released, he went to Algiers and fought in two battles for the Dey. Returning to America, he joined the royalists on the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, and raised the famous corps known
